In Richard LaGravenese’s “Beautiful Creatures,” Emmy Rossum’s Ridley Duchannes captures the essence of the character from Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s bestselling YA novel, while making dramatic and effective external changes.

Gone is the lollypop-sucking Lolita with the pink streaks in her hair and the cosplay wardrobe. Instead, the character has a still-sexy Old Hollywood glamour that makes the linkage between Ridley’s dark caster powers as a man-luring siren and the fact that retro movie starlets were also called sirens.

I sat down with Rossum last weekend and we discussed Ridley’s big screen makeover and her inspirations, as well as a new scene that explores Ridley’s Claiming, the moment she became a dark caster.

I was a bit less successful in getting Rossum to go along with my attempted thematic linkage between Ridley and Fiona, her character on Showtime’s “Shameless.” Not all reportorial tangents can be successful and I still insist this one makes sense.

Finally, Rossum seems excited about exploring Ridley’s progression in potential sequels, though she gives away a plot point from the new book in Garcia and Stohl’s saga. She does, however, offer a helpful “spoiler warning.”

Check out the full interview above.

Stay tuned over the next week for more interests with the stars of “Beautiful Creatures,” including Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis.

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I agree more with her that Fiona and Ridley don’t have much in common, except maybe they’re both promiscuous. Fiona made a selfless choice in taking care of her siblings, Ridley made a selfish one.

By: dan

02.08.2013 @ 5:29 PM

Pria – That’s why I said they were different sides of the same coin! I didn’t say they were the same people, but they’re definitely young women thrust into circumstances out of their choosing and forced prematurely into very different kinds false maturity. She seemed to think I was saying they were the same people, which I totally wasn’t.

But I, too, am a big supporter of Emmy/Dan interaction.

-Daniel

By: pria

02.08.2013 @ 9:55 PM

I think she understood what you meant, but while Ridley was thrust into a circunstance, Fiona chose her circunstance, and it wasn’t like from one point forward, Fiona always had those parents and surely had to pick up the slack from a very young age, she made a choice to take care of her siblings and stick around, so you have to really stretch to see similarity in their situations, which is what Emmy ended up relaying. I like that she didn’t act like she agreed with you and made up a response in agreement, because it was obvious she had never thought about it in those terms and didn’t really see it (which I don’t either, but I appreciate you bringing Shameless into the interview anyway). =)

Dan, did you enjoy the movie? I’ve seen mixed reviews.

By: dan

02.08.2013 @ 9:59 PM

Pria – The movie’s a mixed bag. Parts work very well — including every second Emmy happens to be in — and then parts work much less well… I like a lot of the performances and a lot of the tone of the movie.